Biscuit Blog: Co-operative All Butter Shortbread Fingers

Co-operative All Butter Shortbread Fingers

These were a pleasant surprise,  They are in Co-op's 'Loved' range but they tasted much better than I had expected.  The packet, as is common with shortbread, is short, but the biscuits themselves are very creamy in flavour.  They have a firm snap without being too brittle; you expect shortbread to have some crumble but not to disintegrate, so these strike just the right balance.  There is no sugar covering on these as you find on some shortbread, but actually, in this case, it allows the core flavour of the biscuit to come out clearly.  Very moreish.  As you can gather, I was very pleased with these.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Co-operative Truly Irresistible Fruit and Oat Cookies

Co-operative Truly Irresistible Fruit and Oat Cookies

These biscuits highlight some of the trends that I have noted in passing in recent months in terms of biscuits.  As you see the Co-op is using the term 'cookie' in the same way that Tesco is, i.e. to signify a thicker biscuit containing something and again, in this case, a soft biscuit rather than one with a snap.  These are also in a vertical cardboard box rather than a horizontally orientated plastic packet.  This format apparently designates better quality, emphasised by the 'Truly Irresistible' tag you can see at the top left.  You do wonder if they have a 'I can take them or leave them' range which is that bit cheaper.

Co-op has had a good reputation for baked goods in recent years and their biscuits are sound.  These seemed to have less fruit in them than indicated in the photograph which seems to show genuinely homemade biscuits.  They are soft, almost to the extent on verging on being cakes, but not crumbly in the way shown in the picture.  That was no problem for me as I do not want to lose chunks of my biscuit as I bite into it.  They had a reasonably fruity flavour and the 'fruit', i.e. raisins were not tiny dried specks but had some moistness about them.  I could not detect oats particularly within these biscuits, from them I would have expected a chewier even snappier biscuit.  These had a good level of moreishness, but I was felt that with a little more effort, i.e. more snap and some other fruit like orange zest, they could have been excellent.  I mark them down a little for seeming to lack the oat input promised on the box.

Rating:
*****

By the way, in the UK, the way, legally, that a biscuit is distinguished from a cake is that a biscuit goes soft when it is stale whereas a cake goes hard when stale.  This is why Jaffa Cakes are cakes, even though they look like biscuits, if you leave them, they will go harder than when at purchase, rather than softer.  I did not try the staleness test on these to see if they had crossed the biscuit/cake line.

Biscuit Blog: Co-Operative Malted Milk Biscuits

Co-Operative Malted Milk Biscuits

Maybe I will not come close to the creamy flavour that I am searching for in malted milk biscuits until I start buying some brand names rather than 'own brand' varieties from the cheaper supermarkets.  However, I do feel that just because you have a budget you should still be entitled to be able to buy biscuits that taste the way that they should.  With the malted milks, despite the common imagery on the biscuits, it is interesting how different the ones from different shops taste and often, as I have found, how they taste like a different kind of biscuit.  These from the Co-op have a slight hint of the malted milk flavour, but are generally lacking in moreishness.  They are also surprisingly sweet especially when compared to the other malted milks I have been trying recently; from the flavour you would almost expect them to have a glaze.  They break in the mouth in the way you would expect but end up as a rather unsatisfactory sweeter version of a rich tea.  They are not terrible but once more not what I am looking for with a malted milk.

Rating:
*****

Biscuit Blog: Co-Operative Garibaldi Biscuits

Co-Operative Garibaldi Biscuits

While I have a co-op store close to where I live and a smaller one near where I work, I have only recently begun to explore their biscuits.  As pale blue seems to be becoming the universal colour for malted milk biscuits, purple appears to be the one adopted nowadays for Garibaldis, I imagine in reference to the raisins in them.  These Garibaldis are in a different league to the Tesco ones I tried last month, though it may still only be the Championship rather than the Premier League.  They are a little dry on the tongue.  However, they are deeper than the Tescos version and the raisins are thicker and while not overly sweet, are more flavoursome.  There is a slight glaze on these and some of the chewiness one expects from a Garibaldi.  I also found they had an unexpected moreishness that the Tesco version was certainly lacking.  These may not be the perfect Garibaldi, but certainly of a decent standard to buy from one of the cheaper supermarket chains.

Rating:
*****